Spanish producers lobby for quota increase

The Spanish Producers' Federation FAPAE is lobbying for an increase in the country's controversial screen quota system, calling for one day of European cinema for every two of third-country films exhibited in Spain. Current law requires one for every three.

The recently re-elected president of FAPAE Eduardo Campoy said the group would further lobby that 60% of those European films be Spanish. Other potential measures FAPAE may push for to "make honest competition viable" in Spain's exhibition market are a prohibition on film advertising on TV and restrictions on broadcasts of non-European films.

"More films are entering our market than we can consume," Campoy said of Spain's average ten releases a week. He pointed the finger at blockbuster titles from the US which he claimed "collapse the big cinemas" with their mega-releases and push even successful Spanish films off screens.

He cited the recent example of Harry Potter and Lord Of TheRings, which he said between them occupied almost a third of Spain's screens for several weeks.

Spain's quota system came under heated debate last year when the national Film Institute, ICAA, proposed dissolving the quotas over a five-year period. Instead, the new Cinema Support and Promotion Law which came into effect in June reinstated the quotas for five years.

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